I'm thinking about replacing my old but faithful Gloworm 85-100 with a new combi to save some money on gas bills. Had a thought about keeping the old cylinder, heating it from solar collectors and using it to supply the new combi. Will this work?
In mid summer the sun comes up at approx 5am so with 3 hours early low sun shine it could have a chance of being warm. even if it isn't warm it is less work for the boiler to do. The facts are it cuts your yearly DHW energy bill by 50% to 60% on an average family home here in the UK.Paperspace said:Thanks for all this info. have I got this right - most combis need water at mains pressure and wont accept heated water???
Although quite a few people seem to be a bit iffy about solar, I'm getting quite keen to try it. Fitting a new boiler with a bit of fiddling around is going to cost about £2,500. There's an ebay shop selling a vacuum tube collector, twin coil cylinder, controller and pump for £690. I reckon for £2,500 outlay I could keep my old boiler which is still working, just inefficient, buy his system with another two or three collectors and still maybe have change from £2,500 if I fit most of it myself. The biggest snag I can see with solar is that you probably need a lot of hot water in early in the morning, when it's not goinfg to be doing anything. Spose we'll just have to stay in bed for a bit longer then.
lcgs said:Micky p has this system so apart from wolf and alpha via the solar mixing valve most of the other combis will not accepted pre heated water above 20 deg especially water that during some periods maybe nearlly 60deg plus. before deciding what to do you need to find a boiler manufacturer that will allow this type of system to be rigged up tto their boiler
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